Tag Archives: Rockets

Israel closes Gaza border crossings after Palestinian rocket strikes

Israel closes Gaza border crossings after Palestinian rocket strikes

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel announced the closure of its Gaza border crossings on Thursday in response to daily rocket fire from the enclave over the past week after U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital stoked Palestinian anger.

Israeli aircraft struck three facilities belonging to Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, before dawn on Thursday after the latest rocket attacks, Israel’s military said.

It said it targeted training camps and weapons storage compounds. Hamas usually evacuates such facilities when border tensions spike.

Two of the rockets fired by militants were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system and a third exploded in an open area. There were no reports of casualties on either side of the frontier.

The military said in a statement that “due to the security events and in accordance with security assessments” Kerem Shalom crossing – the main passage point for goods entering the Gaza Strip, and the Erez pedestrian crossing – would be shut as of Thursday. It did not say how long the closure would last.

Some 15 rockets have been fired into southern Israel since Trump’s Dec. 6 announcement, and none of the projectiles has caused serious injury or damage.

The attacks have drawn Israeli air strikes that have killed two Hamas gunmen. Two other Palestinians have been killed in confrontations with Israeli troops during stone-throwing protests along the border.

Israeli cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi said on Israel Radio that while Hamas, which last fought a war with Israel in 2014, was not carrying out the rocket strikes, it needed to rein in militants from “breakaway groups” or it would “find itself in a situation where it has to contend” with the Israeli military.

In Istanbul on Wednesday, a summit of more than 50 Muslim countries condemned Trump’s move and called on the world to respond by recognizing East Jerusalem, captured by Israel along with the West Bank in a 1967 war, as the capital of Palestine.

Trump’s declaration has been applauded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a recognition of political reality and Jews’s biblical links to Jerusalem, a city that is also holy to Muslims and Christians.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Edmund Blair)

Palestinian stabs Israeli in Jerusalem; anti-Trump protest flares in Beirut

A Palestinian demonstrator shouts during clashes with Israeli troops at a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, near the West Bank city of Ramallah December 11, 2017.

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli security guard at Jerusalem’s main bus station on Sunday, police said, and violence flared near the U.S. Embassy in Beirut over U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Four days of street protests in the Palestinian territories over Trump’s announcement on Wednesday have largely died down, but his overturning of long-standing U.S. policy on Jerusalem — a city holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians — drew more Arab warnings of potential damage to prospects for Middle East peace.

“Our hope is that everything is calming down and that we are returning to a path of normal life without riots and without violence,” Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Army Radio.

But in Jerusalem, a security guard was in critical condition after a 24-year-old Palestinian man from the occupied West Bank stabbed him after approaching a metal detector at an entrance to the city’s central bus station, police said. The alleged assailant was taken into custody after a passer-by tackled him.

In public remarks on Sunday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, a frequent critic of Israel, called it an “invader state” and a “terror state”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who spoke at a news conference in Paris alongside French President Emmanuel Macron after the two leaders met, fired back:

“I’m not used to receiving lectures about morality from a leader who bombs Kurdish villages in his native Turkey, who jails journalists, helps Iran go around international sanctions and who helps terrorists, including in Gaza, kill innocent people,” Netanyahu said.

Macron told Netanyahu that he needed to make gestures to the Palestinians to break the impasse between the two sides.

“I asked Prime Minister Netanyahu to make some courageous gestures towards the Palestinians to get out of the current impasse,” Macron said, suggesting that a freeze of construction in settlements could be a first step.

Most countries consider East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed after capturing it in a 1967 war, to be occupied territory and say the status of the city should be decided at future Israeli-Palestinian talks. Israel says that all of Jerusalem is its capital, while Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state.

The Trump administration has said it is still committed to reviving Palestinian-Israeli talks that collapsed in 2014, but jettisoning old policies is necessary to break the deadlock.

Washington says it has not taken a position on Jerusalem’s final status or borders, but it is sensible to recognize that any future peace deal will have Israel’s capital in the city.

The United States was “as committed to the peace process as we’ve ever been”, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Sunday. Trump “didn’t talk about boundaries, he didn’t talk about borders… Because the final status of Jerusalem is between the Palestinians and the Israelis. It’s not for the Americans to decide.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will not meet U.S. Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to the region, Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki said on Saturday. The White House said on Sunday that decision was unfortunate and Pence looked forward to seeing Netanyahu and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

“It’s unfortunate that the Palestinian Authority is walking away again from an opportunity to discuss the future of the region,” said Jarrod Agen, a spokesman for Pence.

Netanyahu reacted to critics in a statement before talks with Macron, to be followed by a meeting with European foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.

“I hear (from Europe) voices of condemnation over President Trump’s historic announcement, but I have not heard any condemnation for the rocket firing against Israel that has come (after the announcement) and the awful incitement against us,” Netanyahu said.

A Palestinian protester throws back a gas canister fired by Israeli forces during a protest in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, December 10, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

DEMONSTRATIONS

In Beirut, Lebanese security forces fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters, some of them waving Palestinian flags, near the U.S. Embassy.

Demonstrators set fires in the street, torched U.S. and Israeli flags and threw projectiles towards security forces that had barricaded the main road to the complex.

In the Moroccan capital, Rabat, tens of thousands of protesters marched down the city’s main thoroughfare chanting slogans including, “The people want to liberate Palestine” and “Death to Israel, enemy of the people and provoker of wars.”

Waving Palestinian flags and holding up pictures of Jerusalem, they expressed anger at the “betrayal” by Arab governments perceived to have backed Trump’s move.

In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, thousands protested outside the U.S. embassy, many waving banners saying “Palestine is in our hearts”.

Maliki has said the Palestinians will be looking for a new peace talks broker instead of the United States and would seek a United Nations Security Council resolution over Trump’s decision.

Arab foreign ministers who met in Cairo on Saturday urged the United States to abandon its decision on Jerusalem and said the move would spur violence throughout the region.

Echoing that view, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates, said the U.S. move “could throw a lifebuoy to terrorist and armed groups, which have begun to lose ground” in the Middle East.

GAZA TUNNEL

Along Israel’s tense frontier with the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military on Sunday destroyed what it described as a “significant” cross-border attack tunnel dug by the enclave’s dominant Islamist group, Hamas.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas on the demolition, which came as Palestinian factions tried to meet Sunday’s deadline for an Egyptian-mediated handover of Gaza by Hamas to Western-backed President Abbas after a decade’s schism.

Pre-dawn Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday killed two Palestinian gunmen after militants fired rockets from the area into Israel on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, John Irish in Paris, Tom Perry in Beirut, Agustinus Beo Da Costa in Jakarta, Sami Aboudi in Dubai, Doina Chiacu in Washington, and Jeff Mason in West Palm Beach, Florida; Editing by Peter Graff and Mary Milliken)

Mattis arrives in Afghanistan as rockets hit Kabul airport

Mattis arrives in Afghanistan as rockets hit Kabul airport

By James Mackenzie and Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited Kabul on Wednesday to pledge support for the government of President Ashraf Ghani, with the precarious security in the Afghan capital underlined by a rocket attack on the airport hours after he touched down.

Arriving from India, where he sought support for the U.S. administration’s new South Asia security plan, Mattis said the United States was determined not to allow “a merciless enemy to kill its way to power”.

Promising a more “holistic” approach without fixed timetables and involving other countries in the region, including Pakistan, he said the Taliban would have to learn they could not defeat the government.

“I want to reinforce to the Taliban that the only path to peace and political legitimacy for them is through a negotiated settlement,” Mattis told a joint news conference with Ghani and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

The visit comes after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new strategy for Afghanistan, promising a stepped-up military campaign against Taliban insurgents who have gained ground as they seek to reestablish Islamic law after their 2001 ouster.

But a rocket attack on Kabul airport that injured five civilians and was claimed by both Islamic State and Taliban insurgents highlighted the rebels’ ability to strike the Western-backed government.

Fighters holed up in a nearby building continued to resist security forces for hours, a spokesman for the interior minister said.

Mattis condemned the attack as a “criminal act by terrorists”, adding that it was a “classic definition of what the Taliban are up to here now”.

There are now about 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan as part of the 13,500-strong NATO-led Resolute Support mission advising and training Afghan forces as well as a separate counterterrorism mission, targeting Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

As part of the new strategy, which will give U.S. commanders greater freedom to use American firepower against the Taliban, Mattis has said the United States will send an additional 3,000 troops to help train Afghan security forces.

It will also make greater use of its air power to support Afghan forces and strike the Taliban, a strategy that carries the risk of an increase in civilian casualties.

“I don’t want to tell the enemy exactly what we are doing but the whole point is to make certain we have a compelling battlefield advantage over anything the Taliban tries to mass against your forces,” he said.

Mattis said U.S. forces would do “everything humanly possible” to limit civilian casualties, which fueled bitter disputes between Washington and the government of former President Hamid Karzai.

Trump has said he expects NATO allies to step up contributions of both troops and funding to the Afghanistan mission, and Stoltenberg said the credibility of the international alliance depended on maintaining its support.

“We know the cost of staying in Afghanistan,” he said. “But the cost of leaving would be higher. If NATO forces leave too soon, there is a risk Afghanistan may return to a state of chaos and once again become a safe haven for international terrorism.”

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Helicopter mistakenly fires on parked vehicles in Russia war games: media

A view shows turrets of armoured vehicles during the Zapad-2017 war games.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A military helicopter on a rural training exercise in western Russia mistakenly fired rockets at a group of parked vehicles, knocking at least one person to the ground, footage posted by Russian news sites and on social media showed.

A video clip published on Tuesday by the independent news site Fontanka.ru showed a helicopter firing a salvo of rockets at a military truck covered in camouflage netting in open countryside, with three vehicles with no military markings visible, parked a few meters away.

A man in civilian clothes who had been standing close to the truck was engulfed in a cloud of dust. The person filming the clip, who was slightly further away, could be seen sprawled on the ground.

Russia is currently staging the “Zapad 2017” war games in the area, major exercises on NATO’s eastern flank that were inspected on Monday by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Fontanka.ru said the incident occurred on Sept. 18 and left one person with concussion. It did not give details on the source of the video.

A second video from the same location, which was posted on social media by Russian investigative bloggers Conflict Intelligence Team, showed the aftermath, including a smashed window in a white jeep nearest to the truck, and shrapnel damage to the military truck.

Reuters could not independently verify the videos.

The Russian Defence Ministry’s western military district, in a statement cited by Interfax news agency, said that during a training exercise a helicopter’s targeting system had mistakenly acquired a target, but denied anyone had been injured.

The representative cited by Interfax did not say when the incident happened, or where, or if the exercise was part of the “Zapad-2017” war games.

“As a result of a strike by an unguided rocket, a cargo vehicle with no people on board was damaged,” Interfax quoted a representative of the military district as saying.

The Western military district includes north-western Russia and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, all areas where the “Zapad-2017” exercises are focused.

Russia’s defense ministry in Moscow did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Asked by reporters about the incident, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred questions to the defense ministry.

(The online version of the story has been corrected to fix a typo in the second paragraph.)

(Reporting by Maria Vasilyeva and Christian Lowe; Editing by Dmitry Solovyov and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Syrian army says Israel fires rockets at airbase near Damascus

Smoke and flames are seen at military airport near Damascus, Syria

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian army command said on Friday that Israeli artillery fired rockets at a major military airbase outside Damascus, and warned Israel of repercussions for what it called a “flagrant” attack.

Explosions were heard in the capital, and residents in the southwest suburbs saw a large plume of smoke rising from the area, while video footage downloaded on social media showed flames leaping from parts of Mezzah military airport’s compound.

Syrian state television quoted the army as saying several rockets were fired from an area near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel just after midnight which landed in the compound of the airbase, used by President Bashar al-Assad’s elite Republican Guards.

“Syrian army command and armed forces warn Israel of the repercussions of the flagrant attack and stresses its continued fight against (this) terrorism and amputate the arms of the perpetrators,” the army command said in a statement.

Israel neither confirms nor denies involvement in striking targets inside Syria. Asked about Friday’s incident, an Israeli military spokeswoman said: “We don’t comment on reports of this kind.”

The Syrian army statement did not disclose if there were any casualties, but said the rockets caused a fire. Earlier, state television said several major explosions hit Mezzah military airport’s compound and ambulances were rushed to the area.

Government forces had in the past used the base to fire rockets at former rebel-held areas in the capital’s suburbs.

The airport, located just a few kilometres from Assad’s presidential palace, had been a base used to fire rockets at former rebel-held areas in the suburbs of Damascus.

Israel in the past has targeted positions of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group inside Syria where the Iranian-backed group is heavily involved in fighting alongside the Syrian army.

In November, the Syrian army said Israeli jets fired two missiles on an area west of the capital, close to the Damascus Beirut-highway, in an attack mounted from Lebanese air space.

Diplomatic sources say Israel has in the past few years targeted advanced weapons systems, including Russian-made anti-aircraft and Iranian-made missiles and bombed the elite Fourth Armoured Division base on Qasioun mountain in the capital.

An air strike in Syria in December 2015 killed a prominent Hezbollah leader, Samir Qantar. Israel welcomed Qantar’s death, saying he was preparing attacks from Syrian soil, but stopped short of confirming responsibility for eliminating him.

Earlier that year, an Israeli air strike in Syria killed six members of Hezbollah, including a commander and the son of late military chief Imad Moughniyah near the Golan Heights.

Israeli defence officials have voiced concern that Hezbollah’s experience in the Syrian civil war, where it has played a significant role and recently helped the Syrian army regain the eastern sector of the city of Aleppo, has strengthened it.

Rebels operating in the area have said Hezbollah’s major arms supply route into Damascus from the Lebanese border has been targeted on several occasions in recent years by air strikes. This has included strikes on warehouses and convoys of weapons.

Damascus airport was also hit by air strikes in 2013.

Israel has been largely unscathed by the Syrian civil war, with only sporadic incidents of stray shells falling on its territory.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi, additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Hugh Lawson)

North Korea claims rocket engine success; South Korea on high alert

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel engine that boosted the power of its ballistic rockets, state media reported on Thursday, as South Korea’s president ordered the military to be ready to respond to the North’s “reckless provocation”.

Pyongyang’s claim indicates it is continuing to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at a rapid pace in defiance of U.N. sanctions, and amid assessment by the South’s officials that it could conduct a new nuclear test at any time.

The isolated state has in recent weeks stepped up bellicose rhetoric, threatening pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Washington and Seoul, as well as making claims of advancement in its weapons technology.

The Rodong Sinmum, the North’s ruling party newspaper, carried photos of leader Kim Jong Un on site as a rocket engine laid horizontally on the ground emitted a fiery blast. A two-page report detailed the testing of the engine’s structure and thrust.

“He noted with great pleasure that the successful test… helped boost the power of ballistic rockets capable of mercilessly striking hostile forces,” KCNA news agency said.

The North said last week it had conducted a successful simulated test of atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile, and would soon test ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

On Wednesday, the North repeated the threat to attack the South’s presidential office, saying its large-caliber multiple rocket launch systems are on alert to strike the Blue House and its special operations unit is ready to go into action.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye ordered a heightened state of alert and put the military on standby to “respond actively to reckless provocations by the North,” according to her office.

The current tension on the peninsula follows the United Nations Security Council’s recent imposition of tough new sanctions against the North over its nuclear and missile programs, and as South Korea and the United States conduct annual joint military drills.

The North calls the exercises “nuclear war moves” and has threatened to respond with an all-out offensive, as well as a series of rocket launches in recent days.

SOLID FUEL ROCKET ENGINE

Pyongyang has previously launched long-range rockets that used liquid fuel but it was seen to lack the capability to build solid-fuel long-range or intercontinental missiles.

Solid-fuel rockets have advantages in military use, although liquid fuel rockets are considered more sophisticated as their thrust can be controlled in flight.

The North has deployed short and medium-range missiles and test fired them, but never flight-tested the KN-08 ICBM it is believed to be developing.

The KN-08, which has been put on display at military parades and in official news media, appears to have a three-stage design that is likely intended to use solid fuel, according to experts.

Despite its boasts to be making progress, many experts believe the North is a decade or more away from building an ICBM capable of threatening the United States.

The North’s stepped-up rhetoric and weapons claims come ahead of its planned congress of the ruling Workers’ Party, which will be the first in more than 35 years.

Some Pyongyang-watchers say the North may look to claim a splashy achievement, such as a fifth nuclear test, in the run-up to the conference as young leader Kim Jong Un looks to bolster his legitimacy domestically.

“North Korea may think it is better for them to complete their nuclear weapons program and negotiate later, rather than just to sit back until it withers and dies,” Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University, said.

The North is ready to conduct a fifth nuclear test “now, immediately,” the South’s unification ministry said on Monday.

Its nuclear test site remained active, undergoing maintenance on existing tunnels as well as clean-up following the January test, according to 38 North, a project of the U.S. Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will push his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama next week to resume talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park and James Pearson; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Tony Munroe)

Iranian Revolutionary Guards Fired Rockets Near U.S. Warships in Gulf: U.S.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Iranian Revolutionary Guards launched rockets near the U.S. aircraft-carrier Harry S. Truman and other warships as they were entering the Gulf on Saturday, giving only brief notice in a “highly provocative” act, a U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday.

NBC News, citing unnamed U.S. military officials, said the Guards were conducting a live-fire exercise and the Truman came within about 1,500 yards (meters) of a rocket.

“The rockets were not fired at the Truman and other ships, only near them,” the network said.

Several Revolutionary Guard vessels fired the rockets “in close proximity” of the warships and nearby merchant traffic “after providing only 23 minutes of advance notification,” said Navy Commander Kyle Raines, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command.

“These actions were highly provocative, unsafe, and unprofessional and call into question Iran’s commitment to the security of a waterway vital to international commerce,” Raines said in an email.

The Truman, accompanied by two warships from the U.S.-led coalition supporting air strikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, was entering the Gulf through the Hormuz Strait on a routine transit when the incident occurred, he said.

NBC News said the U.S. destroyer Buckley and a French frigate were in the area where the rockets were fired.

“While most interactions between Iranian forces and the U.S. Navy are professional, safe, and routine, this event was not and runs contrary to efforts to ensure freedom of navigation and maritime safety in the global commons,” Raines said.

Iranian and U.S. forces have clashed in the Gulf in the past, especially during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Tehran and six world powers including the United States clinched an agreement in July that would curb Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting economic sanctions.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Writing by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Israel Launches Airstrikes in Gaza in Response to Palestinian Rocket

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) launched a series of airstrikes in the Gaza strip after the Palestinian enclave shot a rocket that was heading for the Jewish nation. The Palestinian rocket was stopped by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Palestinian sources told Ynet that the IAF hit 4 “terror targets” inside Gaza, and at least two of the targets belonged to Hamas.

While many citizens heard explosions and reported them on social media, there were no immediate reports of injuries. Israel also had no reports of injuries from the rock that had been intercepted by the Iron Dome near the city of Ashdod.

Israel Defence Force (IDF) spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner stated: “This evening, the third day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, a rocket was fired at southern Israel sending the residents of Ashdod as well as several surrounding communities to nearby bomb-shelters. Hamas is responsible and will be held accountable for every attack emanating from the Gaza Strip. The IDF will continue defending all Israelis who are repeatedly attacked by such blatant acts of aggression.”

Sheikh Omar Hadid, and ISIS affiliated Salafist group, used social media to claim responsibility for the rocket attack. The group stated that the rocket was a response to the fatal shooting of Hadeel al-Hashlamon, an 18-year-old woman who was killed at the checkpoint in the West Bank last week. The arrest of an Israeli Arab women for allegedly joining ISIS was another stated reason for the rocket attack.

Rockets Fired Into Israel

Rockets were fired toward Ashdod and Lakhish on Tuesday night.

An army source told the Jerusalem Post said that sirens went off in the areas before the rockets headed toward the cities.

Various Israeli media outlets reported five rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward the country but that only one rocket actually landed inside Israeli territory.  Initial reports had said that three had landed inside the country.

Sources in Gaza told the Times of Israel that Islamic Jihad fired the rockets toward Israel.  There are disputes inside the organization that led to kidnappings in northern Gaza and ended with the rocket launches into Israel.

The IDF said they are investigating the launch and attempting to confirm the launches were the result of in-fighting among Islamic Jihad.

Hamas Rocket Hits Ashkelon Home; 28 Injured

A Hamas barrage before the beginning of an open-ended cease-fire struck a home in Ashkelon and a playground in Ashdod.

Initial reports from emergency personnel say that 28 people have been injured in the barrage.  The family in the home had just reached their safe room when the rockets struck the roof and were not injured.  However, those in the area were wounded by debris.

At least one rocket made it through the Iron Dome defense system and struck the middle of a kindergarten playground.  No children were harmed in that attack.

Hamas claims the attack was in retaliation for the IDF destroying an apartment complex in Gaza Tuesday.

The IDF launched an attack before the cease-fire that targeted a boy’s school in Gaza City where Hamas launched a rocket assault that killed 4-year-old Daniel Tragerman.  The IDF warned officials in Gaza of the attack so they could make sure no children were inside the building at the time of the attack.

Three times during the conflict Hamas was found to be hiding weapons inside UN schools in Gaza.